This event is part of the 2022-23 Human Rights and the Museum Series, a collaboration between the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and the Museum and Gallery Studies Program in the Art and Design Department at Queensborough Community College (QCC).
Located outside of the Bernalillo County Courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico stands View from Gold Mountain, a monument commemorating Territory of N.M. vs. Yee Hun, the 1883 lawsuit that brought about a change in the law allowing Chinese people, and then later non-Christians, to testify in court. Artists Cheryll Leo-Gwin and Stewart Wong will discuss the making of this monument and its significance as a landmark court case enshrining civil rights for Asian Americans.
Cheryll Leo-Gwin considers herself as a “maker of things.” She earned her MFA in metal design at the University of Washington in 1977, and since has created work in a variety of materials from jewelry scaled 2 and 3-D work to large scale public art. Her love of experimentation found her in research and development in the early 1980s where she discovered new processes for artists to create work in porcelain enamels. This experience continues to influence her work. Exploring new materials and processes, her most recent work uses images from her own sculpture, painting, and photographic images which she isolates, recombines, then translates into large digital prints. As an arts administrator in higher education as well as a state, county and local arts commissioner, her work reflects a sensitivity to public consciousness and social justice. Her current work focuses around issues relative to the US Chinese Exclusion Act of 1883-1943; China's Cultural Revolution; and the Civil Rights Act of 1965 as she compares and contrasts the cultures of East and West.
Stewart Wong is a mixed-media studio and public artist whose work ranges from paper arts to three-dimensional assemblages, installations and sculpture. His work is influenced by his curiosity of the built and natural environment and the structure and mechanics of those environments. He received his BFA in Design from Cornish College in Seattle. His experience includes directing and teaching in after-school clay programs, mentorship in youth art activities and in the Wing Luke Museum's youth program. His public art installations include an Asian-American monument at Bernalillo County Courthouse in Albuquerque, the Sammamish Park and Ride for King County Metro and the Wing Luke Museum's Community Hall.
